


Stain

by Niki



Category: NCIS
Genre: Community: trope_bingo, Happy Ending, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Trope Bingo Round 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-05-04 23:00:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5351573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niki/pseuds/Niki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone wears a cuff to hide their soulwords. Everyone but Leroy Jethro Gibbs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Blank

**Author's Note:**

> So I had this idea of trying to post something every day until Yule, like an advent calendar of sorts, but did not consider how beat I'd be after NaNo, so let's see if I can do every other day.
> 
> This is a side product of a longer “soul words” story in another fandom that was born when I started wondering how the trope would work with NCIS. I had two possible interpretations for Gibbs, but I wasn't actually going to write either of those into stories.
> 
> Neith is a horrible enabler. (And a great beta.) (And a greater friend.)
> 
> (For Trope Bingo prompt: Happy Ending)

Everyone wears it. For some it's a fashionable accessory, like Abby: some days her wrist is covered with black leather and big buckles, some days it's all dainty lace and buttons shaped like candy.

Ziva's is efficient and sturdy, and Tony knows for a fact it hides at least one knife. McGee’s is one of the boring ones you find sold with off the rack suits, slightly worn but with a superhero charm hanging off it. (Tony thinks it was a gift from Abby but refuses to ponder what that might mean.) 

Tony's own is bespoke, immaculate and expensive, and very, very secure. It requires a key to open, which is forbidden for law enforcement officers but he cannot risk his wrist ever being uncovered.

Ducky’s wrist cuff is brown leather that looks like it's a hand-me-down from someone's grandfather. 

Gibbs… wears a wrist watch. Not the wide kind that doubles as a cuff, no, he wears the kind with a thin strap, meant for someone's off hand. 

Some people can't even look at him when he's near, the taboo of soulwords so strong. Some can't help but sneak looks at the worn words, endlessly fascinated by the display of something that is usually such a well-guarded secret, only shown for close family or even just a soulmate.

They all knew what that must have meant before they even heard the name of Shannon and Kelly Gibbs. Dead soulmates take their words with them, the text wearing down after years spent alone. Some people develop new words to replace them, signalling the existence of another perfect partner for them.

That's obviously not the case with Gibbs.

Tony… Tony has no words. It happens: even in a world where everyone is born with the mark of their future perfect partner on their wrist – waiting to form into words when the child grows and there is room on their wrist for words – some never develop theirs.

It isn't talked about, and most blanks wear the wrist cuffs like everyone else to pass as normal. 

It's Tony's most well-guarded secret. It's the source of his insecurity, the knowledge of his own unlovability. He disguises it by flirting and casual affairs, just as long as everyone knows he can't be “it” for them. 

It doesn't mean he couldn't find someone, just for a while. He thought Jeanne would be someone he could have, someone equally broken, because while her mate was alive, he'd left, and they'd never made it work.

But in the end the lies were too much, things always coming between them: her mate's hovering, his job… and again he's left with the knowledge he'll be forever alone.

In his most well-guarded thoughts, there's a wish he refuses to name, a dream he hardly dares to dream, something he guards even more jealously than the reality of his blank wrist.

When he met Gibbs, the other man hadn't said a word. He'd run his gaze down Tony's body where it was straddling him, in a wordless look that felt heavy with meaning. Maybe… maybe those were the words Tony never had, a stare marked as a blank space where everyone else held the first words their perfect mates first said to them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank Neith for the fact the story doesn't actually end here. She prodded me until I provided more.


	2. Scar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the kudos and comments!

Gibbs doesn't even think about it anymore, the words bleached of their meaning, just a spot of coloration on his wrist. 

They used to hurt. _What were you and those guys fighting about?_ Shannon's first words to him, the words he grew up seeing on his wrist. He'd removed the cuff every night when he was a teen, tracing the words and imagining the situation in which they would be said.

Every time he was in a brawl, or an argument, he wondered, if ever so briefly, if this would be it, the fight mentioned in his words. 

Yet he hadn't been ready, he hadn't expected it when the redhead he'd seen before was there, and turned her head, and...

And it had amused Shannon no end that her own words had began with an “Uhh.” She'd laughed when they first bared their wrists to each other, almost a year after they'd first met. 

Things moved slower, back then. They'd waited months to kiss, and years to marry. 

He wishes she'd waited longer to die, too.

At first it hurt too much to see her words on his wrist, so he never removed his cuff, not even to shower. It was the black, utilitarian kind the military handed out with the standard gear. He'd had another one he used when on leave, one Shannon bought him. She'd laughed when she gave it to him, mocking her own inability to make one herself, like the heroines in the old novels. 

She learnt to crochet when she was expecting Kelly, to make her her first little cuff, to guard the smudges that would one day turn into words. 

They never had. Gibbs doesn't know what happened to Kelly's future mate, if they had their words fade away when just a child. Or maybe she never really had a mate, maybe the Fates had always known she would die too young. 

The thought makes him angry, too angry, and he always refuses to contemplate it for long. 

So Gibbs had never taken off his cuff for those first years, and when he had, the words had started to fade. He'd known that would happen, that soulmates take their words with them, as the old saying goes. But he wasn't ready to let go yet, not of her, not of them.

So he started to leave the cuff off when off duty, to see the words, to see the tangible reminders of her presence in his life, to never forget his past, his gift, his happiness, his loss, his guilt. 

And at some point he just never put the cuff back. What does he care about anyone else seeing his words? He's heard them, he's had them, their function has been served. To have them covered just gives people something to gossip about, gives women hope that he'd still be available, might be their match. 

He doesn't give a rat's ass about society's rules and niceties. So people don't usually go around uncovered, so what. If people can't tear their eyes off his hand, so what. If others find it too hard to even look at him, so what. He's past caring.

So he wears his watch on his right hand, the wrist band nowhere near enough to cover even the few words in the middle. 

And now... after, God, decades, he's finally losing the words. They hold no meaning to him anymore, he hardly even notices them when looking at his watch. Just a slight discoloration of skin, like a mole, no, like a scar. A reminder of past pain, but one he mostly doesn't even notice anymore. 

The words keep fading. 

There is a legend, studied and researched, that says that the soul words persist on the wrist of the mate left behind as long as they are unable to let go, to move on from their loss. Some never do, and they carry their words for decades, up to their own death. Some develop new words, side by side with their old ones. Some lose the old ones, whether or not they are replaced by a new line. 

The studies are usually inconclusive, because how does one quantify person's readiness to move on from loss? 

Gibbs married three times, both parties knowing they weren't soul mates. He thinks Rebecca considered him her possible soulmate, her words always too generic in form. But when she found her perfect match, she'd dropped Gibbs with the due consideration one would show to a dead leaf stuck on their shoe. 

Shannon's words on his wrist remained unchanged throughout, a living testament to Gibbs's inability to properly move on. But now... they are fading fast. 

And then, one morning, there is a smudge on his wrist, next to his words, running parallel to them. 

He buys a cuff.


	3. Echo

One Monday in May Gibbs shows up to work with an utilitarian black cuff on his right wrist. It looks new, and like it was picked up from Walmart. 

Even Ziva does a double take when she sees it. McGee nearly drops his take away coffee. Tony guesses Abby's scream will be heard ten stories up from her lab when Gibbs ends up making his way down there. 

Gibbs, of course, ignores their reactions like he's ignored the looks on his bare wrist all these years. He acts like nothing has changed. 

Maybe nothing has. But why the cuff, why now, why so suddenly? Gibbs can't expect the trained investigators of his team to _not_ speculate. 

Tony doesn't know what to think, but that doesn't stop the theories from flitting through his mind. Did someone finally complain it was too distracting, and the director forced him to wear one? Was the fading of the text too much for Gibbs? 

Is he just trying to fuck with everyone's mind? 

He doesn't want to voice the next theory that occurs to him, but Abby has no such restrictions. Her eyes seem to sparkle with stars when she suggests that maybe Gibbs got new words. 

“This late in life?” Ziva says, frowning.

“Why not? The Bossman has plenty of romance left in him!”

“Maybe he's about to meet her soon,” McGee suggests, and the pain Tony feels shouldn't be as sharp, shouldn't be as strong. 

He's known he has no chance, has been painfully aware of it for a decade, so why does it still hurt so much? He's been making his peace with the fact he will be forever alone since he was old enough to understand the concept of an empty wrist.

But it does hurt thinking about it now. A new redhead waltzing into Gibbs's life, announcing her arrival with a brand on his wrist, something new and private to replace the openness of his old wounds.

Tony slips out of the discussion, hides in the men's room for long minutes to collect himself, before returning to his desk to drown in paperwork. He doesn't want to look at Gibbs, look at his wrist, where the cuff is now almost as noticeable as the absence of one had been, that looks almost as out of place as his bare skin did only a few days ago.

Maybe Gibbs just got the cuff to be contrary. Now that they're finally becoming comfortable with the lack, he's knocking them out of balance with a presence. Maybe it's a test. One they are all failing.

\- - -

The looks irritate Gibbs in a way the reaction to his cuffless hand hadn't for years. It makes him resent the smudges, the change that necessitated the cover. He doesn't even know if they've formed into words yet, doesn't want to see. 

He's gone back to the habit of never taking his cuff off, even as he finds it impossible to forget, not used to the pressure on his wrist, its wet weight after a shower pissing him off.

But he refuses to take it off, because then he might see, and he definitely does not want to see his wrist, to read the words that might have taken shape next to – or even in the place of – Shannon's words. 

He keeps thinking about it, though, every time he meets someone new. A witness, a suspect, a stranger in the street, a waiter in a restaurant, even a new co-worker. He resents them all, fearing to see a look of recognition on someone when he talks to them, and it makes him even more taciturn, rude and curt. 

Keeping his words generic and short, so even if he is their possible match, they'll never know it. 

Soul mates are not a guarantee, not an unbreakable promise. If someone has pinned their hopes on him, too bad. No matter what his wrist might think, he is not ready to move on, not ready to accept someone taking the place of his girls. No matter what the Fates or Destiny or who ever makes these calls might think.

Ducky forces the issue, in the end. He pokes and prods until he gets the truth out of Gibbs, although the both men know he never would have, had Gibbs not wanted to share it, really. 

“And you haven't looked?” his old friend clarifies. “Jethro, that is just plain silly.”

“I'm not ready, Duck.”

“Clearly, you are.”

“Then I don't want to be.”

“Now you're just being stubborn for the sake of it.”

He buys a new bottle of bourbon, and sits in his basement for long hours until he finally finds the will to open the buckles. Slowly, eyes closing when he finally gets it off. 

The first thing he takes in is the fact Shannon's words are still there, no fainter than they were weeks ago, when he first noticed the smudge. 

Only after that do his eyes focus on the words the smudge has turned into, and his heart stops. 

He knows those words. He's already heard them, and what are the chances he will, again? 

He's heard them, almost a decade ago.

_Freeze, dirtbag!_


	4. Close

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The response to this fic has been overwhelming, I thank you all for your kind words! (It has also been very entertaining to see you speculating about the possible words!) 
> 
> Here's the final installment, I hope it lives up to your expectations.

One day Gibbs shows up to work already angry. While that isn't rare on it's own, Tony soon realises the anger is focused on him, and for the life of him he can't remember anything he's done lately to cause it. 

Ziva and McGee notice, of course, and they all agree they can come up with no reason for it – and after it has gone on for long enough and seems unfair enough the others stop feeling good about making fun of him for it. They don't go as far as to deflect the anger but at least they try to not make it worse. 

It goes on for days, days of Gibbs refusing to look at him except with a glare, days of him refusing to treat Tony fairly when dividing jobs during a case, days of Tony swallowing his complaints.

Abby tries to find out what's wrong, and Gibbs even snaps at her. Ducky is no help, because he refuses to share anything he knows about Gibbs's mood, or its possible cause. 

Tony does his best to avoid Gibbs, but on Thursday of the second week he unwittingly ends up in the elevator alone with his boss. He hides a grimace, and stares at the doors, trying to make the machine move faster. He can almost feel the rage in Gibbs, like he's radiating it, and suddenly he's had enough.

He stops the elevator (and how sad is it, that they all consider it normal these days?) and turns to his boss with a determined look. “What the hell is your problem?”

The glare that meets him would have silenced him a few floors ago, but now he just matches it with his own angry stare. 

“What is _my_ problem?” As if it was obvious, as if it _should_ be obvious, and then the older man goes on, his voice dripping venom: “How long have you known?”

“Known _what_?”

“Take off your cuff,” Gibbs orders, and the world stops, because _what?_

He has no right, there is no authority who can force someone to expose their wrist – even body searches allow for a strip of dark tape to be placed on the words. But Gibbs is – as always – a law unto himself, and Tony... just doesn't care anymore.

His most guarded secret, even over his feelings for the other man, and he just pulls back his sleeve with decisive but choppy movements, because he can't stop trembling, be it anger or fear. He extracts the key, unlocks the lock, then moves to the buckles.

He meets the other man's glare with is own and finally, for the first time, presents his naked wrist to another person, and the fact that it's done in anger and defiance is enough to make him want to laugh, because it's either that or weeping. 

He turns the hand around a few times, to make sure Gibbs gets a good view of the proof of his brokenness, and the other man's expression changes completely. No pity, he couldn't deal with pity, but he can't even decipher what it really looks like, and then... Then Gibbs removes his own cuff.

And there, as they had theorised, next to the faded words of Shannon's, are two new words.

_Freeze, dirtbag!_

Tony can only stare at the words, reading them over and over again like he can't be sure his own fantasies aren't making him see things, because he _cannot_ be sharing this moment with Gibbs, those _cannot_ be his own words from all those years ago. But who else... is someone else going to shout those very words to Gibbs sometime in the future? That would be the final nail in Tony's coffin, the strike that would finally end him.

“I've been trying to remember what I said,” Gibbs said, as if dazed. “I couldn't.”

“You didn't say a thing, I think, until after I read you your rights, until Danny...”

Gibbs's hand is on Tony's wrist, his fingers running lightly over the bare strip of skin that should have writing on it but never did. No one else has ever touched him there, not after he was old enough to know to keep his cuff on. He shudders, the skin more sensitive than any other part of him, and it's _Gibbs_ , and he's never touched Tony like that, like he's something precious.

“Why now?” he asks, swallowing.

“Ducky has theories,” Gibbs says, and raises his eyes to meet Tony's to share the joke, the smile only making as far as his eyes. “He says, sometimes, the second rounders aren't ready to accept new words, and they can get delayed. Even if meetings... aren't.”

He looks away again, down at Tony's wrist, at his own fingers, still moving over the strip of skin.

“Or then, some people theorise that... we choose our words, they don't choose for us.”

He meets Tony's eyes again, steady and decisive, no trace of anger or doubt. And Tony realises Gibbs believes that theory, because he _would_ choose this, and his heart seems to stop, it's like he can't breathe.

And then they are kissing. He doesn't know who moved first, but his free hand is cupping Gibbs's face, and he feels the hand running through his own hair as their lips meet in the tenderest kiss he has ever experienced. Now he really feels like crying, this moment something he never thought he could have – seeing someone's soul words and knowing they were for him, and more specifically, he never thought he could have _Gibbs_.

Gibbs pulls back and rests his forehead against Tony's, his right hand wrapped around his wrist like a cuff. 

“I don't suppose they'd let us F43 our way out of here?”

F43.9, the ICD code for “reaction to severe stress, unspecified,” almost universally used by doctors to excuse newly met soulmates from work or school. 

“Ducky would sign on it.”

\- - -

Tim is happy to see that Gibbs seems to be back to normal. Or maybe not _quite_ back to normal, because that looks disturbingly like a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. Otherwise the man looks the same, except for... huh, he has a new cuff. 

It's much more stylish than his previous one, looking less like an afterthought, or a necessity. It looks like an accessory, something like Abby's or Tony's cuffs. Well, stylistically it's closer to Tony's than Abby's of course. It's... really, really close to Tony's style, actually, and now the smile is tugging at Tim's lips. Matching wrist cuffs are like engagement rings for some cultures – their grandparents' generation still considered it a thing to gift their soul mate with a home made cuff, and couples often chose to wear similar ones, and the boss and Tony are going to find it even harder to deflect those misunderstandings and jokes if they star sporting similar cuffs!

Not... similar. Tony just sauntered into the bullpen and he has a new cuff too. An exact match to Gibbs's new cuff and holy shit!

“Holy shit!”

Their grins match, too.

\- The End -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story ends here, but I'll be posting other NCIS stories yet as part of my "advent calendar" project. 
> 
> Thank you again for your encouragement with this fic!


End file.
